Putney CEO wins prestigious award, closes $16M equity round

By WHIT RICHARDSON Wednesday Jun 11, 2014

Jean Hoffman (right), CEO of Putney Inc., receives the award for New England’s Entrepreneur of the Year from Ernst & Young. She stands with Kristin Keating, New England co-chair of the awards.

Jean Hoffman is having a good week.

On Friday, her company, Putney Inc., raised $16 million in its latest round of financing. Four days later, on Tuesday evening, she was named New England’s Entrepreneur of the Year in the life sciences category by Ernst & Young, one of the largest professional services firms in the world.

Hoffman founded Putney in 2006 to develop generic pharmaceuticals for the pet market — going head to head with Big Pharma and their branded, and more expensive, drugs. Judging by the company’s growth, the underdog seems to be doing well. Hoffman expects the company’s 2014 revenue to exceed $30 million, an increase from the $19.2 million it posted in 2012. It currently employs 60 people at its office on Monument Square.

The Ernst & Young award is the latest recognition for Hoffman, who considers the competition “the most prestigious honor for entrepreneurship in the world.”

“It was a really exciting and fun evening,” Hoffman told me from her cell phone Wednesday morning. “I was very surprised to win in the life sciences category where the competition was tough.”

She said the award was not only an honor for her, but also for the entire Putney team and “a recognition of how much science is involved in what Putney is doing.”

“I feel very much that this is a recognition for all of us and what we’re building here in Portland, Maine,” she said.

In her acceptance speech, she compared the tenacity necessary of an entrepreneur with that of her forebearers, including her great grandfather who sold cabbages and onions from a stand in New York City and another set of great grandparents who were homesteaders on the North Dakota prairie.

“We don’t have locusts like they did in North Dakota, but we do have big, entrenched pharmaceutical companies that feel under threat from Putney,” she said.

The Ernst & Young entrepreneurship competition is not a walk in the park.

“They run a rigorous assessment process that’s gone on for months,” Hoffman said.

Richard Galante at insurance firm Willis of New Jersey nominated Hoffman. Her nomination was then vetted by outside judges, who chose the finalists (there were 39 entrepreneurs from 35 companies chosen as finalists; she was the only one from Maine). After being named a finalist, one of four companies in the life sciences category, Hoffman was then visited in Portland by a few Ernst & Young partners for some more vetting. The interviews must have gone well judging by Tuesday evening’s award. Hoffman will now compete for the national award at an event in California in November.

The award comes in the wake of another piece of good news for the eight-year-old company.

On Friday, the company raised $16 million in a Series D round of equity financing, which brings the total amount of capital the company has raised to $57 million. The round consists of existing investors, Hoffman said.